Valiant Voices ‘Dunce Cheque’ Election Campaign Dubplate For Antiguan Prime Minister Gaston Browne

Valiant‘s Dunce Cheque election campaign dubplate for Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne, in which he hailed the twin-island nation’s leader while denouncing his challenger, Harold Lovell, has been sparking much discussion online.

In a clip of the dubplate which was shared to the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party’s Facebook page, Valiant venerates party leader Browne, and trashes Political Leader of the United Progressive Party Harold Lovell and his candidates, as dumb and unqualified for leadership, as they have “no intellect, no subject”.

“Lovell and the UPP upset!!!” the ABLP captioned the post.

A strong debate ensued thereafter, as the country’s nationals sparred over the use of the dub, as well as who would win the Antigua and Barbuda General Elections, which is set for January 18.

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One Facebook commenter, Tev Navas Müller stated that it was Browne who was “a dunce” for using a song that promulgates buffoonery to promote his cause.

“The PM a one real dunce head to make such dubplate… If you listen to the lyrics of this, a only all Dunce head would approve this from a PM who is full of ‘intellect to run the country’ which is said in the song. That’s a real Dunce Head I mean Cheque,” he stated.

Dunce Cheque, released in early November, has almost 10 million views on YouTube.

As the debate raged, another commenter was at pains to explain that dubplates were a part of electioneering, and was not the One Nation Concert which was to be held by the Ministry of Creative Industries.

“This song has nothing to do with the one nation concert, it’s customary in a election season if a party invite a singer especially a dancehall singer, they normally do a song in honor to the party or in this case the leader of the party.  A mean, what’s so bad about the song?  It’s very factual in my estimation base on Lovell past performances he must have been in the back of the class for real, a all duncness he did…,” the commenter stated.

Over on Irish and Chin’s Soundchat Radio’s Instagram page where the dubplate was shared, it was pointed out that artists doing political dubs was nothing new.

“Some people were shocked to see/hear #Valiant doing a dubplate in support of upcoming national elections in Antigua.  Truthfully Jamaican artistes being hired to encourage votes for political parties, has been happening for some time across the Caribbean,” the post read.

“I hope he charged them well for that. Politics Dubplates can go up to 5k depending on the artist or how bad they want it,” one commenter noted in response, while another added: “I hope he doesn’t do any dub for Andrew (Holness)”.

In August 2020, during Jamaica’s own General Election campaign, a slew of Dancehall artists had voiced pro-candidate and pro-political party dubplates, namely Skillibeng, Shenseea, D’Angel, Intence, Ishawna, Stylo G, Spice, Teejay, Dovey Magnum, Christopher Martin, Quada and Jahvilliani. 

However, Bounty Killer, Vybz Kartel, Tanya Stephens, Queen Ifrica, Protoje, and Foota Hype had openly lashed the island’s politicians for what they described as their exploitation of Dancehall music during their political campaigns, but otherwise failing to support the genre when in office.

Sometime later, Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness, had revealed that most of the dubplates voiced by Dancehall artists for the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), were not commissioned by the politicians, but that several artists voiced the campaign songs of their own accord and approached the party.

Holness had also said that he was not perturbed about the dissenting voices, objecting to the use of dubs and specials voiced by Dancehall artists for politicians during the campaign period leading up to the island’s General Elections on September 3.